The Rains of Castamere

Last night's episode of Game of Thrones can only be described as The Episode. This is the one that book readers have been waiting to see since the first season was ordered by HBO, the moment that book readers have been trying to carefully avoid speaking of in TV-viewer-only company so as to preserve the same sense of shock we felt ourselves.

I still remember every detail of reading about the deaths of Robb and Catelyn for the first time. It shocked me in a way that even Ned's death in the first book didn't shock me. I had to put down the book for a while and come back later. And then, when I did come back, I had a little war with myself: keep reading with the next chapter, or give in to the urge to thumb ahead and see if Catelyn's name would appear at the top of another chapter... if somehow, impossible though it seemed given what I'd just read, someone had survived the massacre that would come to be known as the Red Wedding.

The TV series brought this sequence to life wonderfully, and managed to even one-up the book in a key respect. As in the book, Arya is right there, almost reunited with Robb when it happens. But given the narrative structure of the book, with each character getting his or her own chapter, I don't think you quite fully appreciate this "so close, but yet so far" aspect of events. The series was free to cut back and forth between the banquet hall and events outside, and made it painfully clear... Arya was right there, just a few feet away. But then, had she actually made it, she would have just been one more death in the tragedy.

Of course, the series did add more death to the tragedy, putting Robb's pregnant wife there to be murdered as well. It adds just one more level of horror to it all... and perhaps puts to rest any notion book readers might have clung to, believing that somewhere out there, the child of Robb Stark might appear a  few decades later for vengeance.

The show also nailed another "so close, yet so far" moment from the books, as Bran and his group hid from Jon and his wildlings in the abandoned tower. Here again was a scene that worked well enough in the books, spread across two chapters, but worked even better on screen when cut together.

Of course, there were also scenes with Sam and Daenerys, but please... who will be talking about them on Facebook or at the watercooler? And really, that's what I may enjoy most about this episode, having a whole new pool of people to share in the shock of one of George R.R. Martin's wrenching plot twists. The reactions should prove very interesting.